Silver FRESH • ARTS
Hidden in the Hills artist studio tour returns By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski
H
idden in the Hills is celebrating its silver anniversary the last two weekends of November with free, self-guided tours featuring 191 artists at 45 private studios in the Desert Foothills communities. Coordinated by the nonprofit Sonoran Arts League, the event is Friday, November 19, to Sunday, November 21, as well as Friday, November 26, to Sunday, November 28.
Londoner enthralled by desert landscape Michele Corsini has always loved to create. She was born in London and was influenced, in part, by her Italian father, who was a skilled mosaic craftsman. She “ran away” to art college in 1983 and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in fine arts, painting, from St. Martin’s School of Art in London in 1987. Then, in 1988, she joined her high school friend, Mark De Simone, in a true adventure. They moved to the United States. “I ran away again, this time to Phoenix,” she says. “And upon arriving with Mark, my first thought was, ‘What was this land?’ I was enthralled by the harsh beauty of the desert landscape. I was only in my 20s, and here I was in this wonderland of majestic landscapes, harsh vegetation and resilient animals. It was truly an adventure 18
Plein air painter Michele Corsini paints a giant agave in Mexico. (Photo courtesy of Sonoran Arts League)
like no other.” She and Mark spent much of their first year in the United States exploring the Southwest and Mexico. They bought an old Volkswagen bus and traveled to remote areas to hike and mountain bike.
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“In those early years, we would brew our own dark beer and make our own wholegrain bread because we couldn’t find it in Phoenix,” Corsini recalls. Eventually the two good friends fell in love, married, and had three children.
